Lions win Cape & Islands League showdown

Matt Goisman @MattGoismanCCT

Tuesday

May 15, 2018 at 10:21 PMMay 16, 2018 at 6:26 AM

Lions win Cape & Islands League showdown

HYANNIS — St. John Paul II sophomore Aaron Cole hurled a curveball toward the plate. He watched Brandon Willis swing but fail to make contact, then took a quick step off the mound and walked over to his teammates.

It was a rather quiet reaction after making so many loud plays.

Cole got on base four times out of the leadoff spot and also earned the two-out save as the Lions beat the Monomoy Sharks 8-6 in Tuesday’s showdown between the top two Cape & Islands League baseball teams at McKeon Park.

“We’ve been talking about it all week, and we knew that they were going to be wanting this game badly,” Cole said. “We came out with fire, and we just kept going and going.”

Monomoy’s Logan Routhier (1-for-3, three RBIs, one run) erased a 3-1 deficit with a two-run single with two outs in the top of the fifth off starter Devan Harrison. Harrison’s teammates wouldn’t let his strong start go to waste, as Jack Richard drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and Darren Katziff (2-for-3, RBI) added an RBI single to put the Lions ahead 5-3.

Cole doubled in a run and Will Good and Joe Dorman (2-for-4, two RBIs) added RBIs to push the lead to 8-3 in the sixth.

“The more adversity these kids can handle and we can learn from, it’s just going to help us in the long run,” said Lions coach Ryan Soares. “I’m very proud of those guys, how they responded right away. They got the lead back, and they never gave it back,”

Kiernan Murphy’s bases-loaded single off Dorman scored a pair of runs in the seventh, at which point Cole took over on the mound. He gave up an RBI fielder’s choice to Eli Nickerson, but then struck out Willis with the tying run on first to finish the save.

“I love throwing that pitch,” Cole said of his curveball. “It just buckles kids’ knees.”

The Lions (9-1, 7-0 C&I) stole 11 bases, bunted for four singles, executed a sacrifice bunt and plated two runs on sacrifice flies. Dorman successfully executed a suicide squeeze to go up 1-0 in the first inning, reaching first base when no one covered the bag, and Connor Jones bunted his way on and scored on a passed ball to make it 2-0 Lions later in the inning.

Andrew Cassidy (two runs) reached on a hit-by-pitch, stole second and scored on a single by Cole (2-for-2, two walks, two RBIs, two runs, two steals) to lead 3-0 in the second inning.

Monomoy (9-4, 7-2 C&I) got on the board in the third when Willis walked and later scored on Routhier’s groundout. Harrison also walked Eli Nickerson to start the fifth, and two batters later Jamie Routhier singled to set up Logan’s game-tying hit.

Harrison still got the win, allowing three runs (two earned) on three hits, three walks and four strikeouts over 5.1 innings.

“We got to the first reliever good, got to the second reliever, and give us credit for tying the game at 3 and then getting the tying run on first base (in the seventh),” said Sharks coach Steve Wilson. “We got some good contributions from the whole team today.”

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